With the grand return of the Calgary Stampede, a spectacular event that attracts many attendees, homebuyers are also rushing to secure properties in Alberta’s largest city.
This summer, the hottest commodity in town is not a perfect pair of cowboy boots or a fancy Stetson, but rather a detached house on a beautiful piece of land or a perfect condo with a stunning city view.
Calgary has also set an all-time record for home sales in June. The influx of homebuyers has increased by 11% compared to the previous year, with condominium sales alone surging by an impressive 48% — a challenge to what is happening across Canada.
The real estate story nationwide has largely been a decline in activity since the beginning of the year due to the impact of rising interest rates.
While home sales in major markets like Toronto and Vancouver began to rebound this spring, national home sales only increased by 1.4% compared to the previous year.
And while prices have dropped nationwide, house prices in Calgary continue to rise.
The average selling price of a home in Calgary last month increased nearly 7% compared to the previous year, reaching $552,273, according to the Calgary Real Estate Board.
One reason that Calgary’s housing market is more vibrant than the rest of the country is the city’s abundance of development opportunities.
Unlike Toronto and Vancouver, where the overheated housing market has been a topic of discussion in recent years, Calgary is emerging from a prolonged recession that started with the collapse of oil prices in 2015.
In that year alone, home sales in Calgary dropped by 26%. In the city’s condo and apartment market, it took 8 years for prices to recover to 2014 levels.
However, with higher commodity prices starting from last year following the conflict in Ukraine, the city’s oil and gas-dependent economy is rebounding.
Over the past 12 months, Alberta’s labor market has outperformed the rest of the country in job growth. A recent report by Deloitte predicts that the province will have the strongest economic growth in the country this year, projected at 2.1%.
According to Statistics Canada, an additional 100,000 people moved to Alberta from various countries.
